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The problem is that NK has an army of mostly soldiers, even HORSES still. That means they will be spread all over the field, so bombs and drones won't be very effective.

They don't stand a chance of WINNING, but they will make a terrible mess of the South because the South has 100x more value of factories, industry, business, people than the North does. Any war is just going to be a slugfest the North trying to break as much as they can, while the South defends and bombs "dirt" because that's all the Norths got.

The biggest problem is that the North will assuredly try to provoke China... That could put US and China troops accidentally shooting at each other...

Not likely. China is growing tired of Peyongyang's shenanigans. It was cute when China was a fervent marxist state and a major exporter of revolutionary insurgence. But China's come of age, is a major world power. They're finding N. Korea's crap annoying lately. China and the US' s economic futures are entwined for the near term, going to war over N. Korean nonsense doesn't seem likely to me. What's far more likely is the US getting involved in a dust up between Japan and China.

The Chinese have been itching to get back Japan. Specifically those aged 50 and older (whom have politically climbed to the top within the rank and file). Many younger Chinese don't "hate" the Japanese. But they are very nationalistic due to a boost in confidence from growing economic conditions. Of course, that generation has yet to feel the real impact war on the home front. Then again, same could be said of the US or Japan. Also worth mentioning is that the younger Japanese generation are also becoming nationalistic too. It's a giant recipe for a disaster that ought never happen. I believe war will breakout between China and Japan and we will get politically sucked into it if not out-right militarily.

Two things need to happen.1. Japan needs to grow a pair and acknowledge their past unjust aggressions toward China, the invasion and make amends to the raping of nanking.2. China needs to just drop the pride thing and move on.

This is sabre ratteling and nothing more. The US still has the mutualy assured destruction plan to prevent the use of nukes. An attack whould be the end of N Korea and they know it as destruction is assured. This is what kept the US and Russia from trading barbs for a long time during the cold war and eventualy led to peace. We watched each other carefully, then figured each other was worried someone would do something stupid. It never happened.

It would be unfortunate if N Korea did something stupid and triggered the assured destruction portion of the plan.

The US is not going to drop nukes first. A pre-emptive strike won't prevent a return due ot the run silent run deep capibility.

MAD also only works when both sides can actually destroy eachother. A NK nuclear strike could at best kill a few million people, after which their entire nation would go up in smoke(or by invaded on every front at the very least, nuking NK might not be a very popular option as fallout would drift out over japan(ironic isn't it that everything nuclear somehow end up affecting japan) and south korea.

Well, you're right that it's an uneven match-up, but no device that the DPRK has tested has been very powerful -- not even to the level of the US nuclear armaments in the 40s -- and what they've managed to put together has been inefficient (even the most recent one) and dirty. Depending on the location of a detonation, casualties could be heavy, but nowhere near a million people. Truth be told, while they ramble on about what they'd do to DC, they could never get a device near it. I think that they'd probably hit a US base near Seoul, if they could. That said, they'd be kicking a hornets nest. Their greatest tactical threat comes from several hundred artillery positions they have spread along the DMZ, and those can easily strike Seoul, even for the ones that are positioned furthest back. The US has bombs, tested in Iraq against tank divisions, that would render most of those artillery pieces unusable within hours. Logistically, the DPRK would run out of fuel for trucks in a matter of months (perhaps weeks) and run out of food in about the same timeframe. Assuming that the US would leave Pyongyang untouched for the first few weeks (unlikely) they'd be trying to support a front line with starving soldiers and prisoners with pack-bikes by then, and that would not last for long. At the same time, the DPRK has created lots of dug-in defenses, and there will be a ton of dead-enders to deal with. At the longest, I think the DPRK might last six months. The US would never have to retaliate with nukes. Even if we did, our arsenal has pretty clean weaponry, so the impact of drifting fallout would not be that big. Still, there's no need for the US to use nukes. China, if they played their cards correctly, could seal their border with the DPRK, flood the place with humanitarian aid to prevent a mass exodus of refugees, and wait for the US to eliminate resistance. I wonder what kind of weirdos would step into the vacuum left by a KJ-U defeat, though.

Their missiles can maybe, possibly reach San Francisco with a bit of luck and almost certainly Honolulu. Of course, that means praying the US doesn't have any sort of missile defense or the missile gets through by freak chance... not a good bet when you only have a few nukes.

Official US position is that use of weapons of Mass Destruction against the US homeland, US troops or allies protected by the "nuclear umbrella" will result in nuclear retaliation.

MADD can only work if you are willing to retaliate in kind. It would be foolish of the US NOT to retaliate with nukes as it would empower enemies with the idea that we won't attack. Al Queda sprang from that very idea after the bombing in Lebannon and the lack of US retaliation along with half a dozen other instances where the US did essentially the same thing when confronted with attacks.

I wonder what kind of weirdos would step into the vacuum left by a KJ-U defeat, though.

That's the problem. That population has been living under heavy oppression with extreme brainwashing for so many years that I doubt that they'd even be able to benefit from a free election for a number of years after.

Actually, if you look at the behavior, it's pretty rational. Their behavior has been pretty standard in the last few years. Before a big conference: ratchet up rhetoric -> During conference: ratchet down rhetoric in exchange for food and other random guarantees -> rinse, repeat. There are two ways out of this: ignore NK rhetoric, which only works to a point. Once they put their missiles on ships for exports, their doing more than just talking big. The other way is to take NK at their word, which also only works to a point - are we really going to nuke NK? NK knows both limits pretty well, because they've been playing them quite astutely.

Now, could NK actually be crazy and do something stupid? No one really knows - another beauty of the NK foreign relationship game. Personally, I would ignore NK completely, cut them off from the world, and make it clear to China that they're risking their harmonious society because one of their buffer zones is the equivalent of a schoolyard bully with a gun. The only way we're going to "solve" NK is by making it China's problem. And then that brings up the question of how SK will look at NK essentially becoming a Chinese territory.

The only foreign policy problem that's worse than the NK question is the Palestinian question. And not by a huge amount.

Realize the capital of South Korea is an hour drive from the DMZ. If war starts NK WILL hit it out of pure spite...

Do you know what the South Koreans and North Koreans both share?

Disdain for the American's meddling in their country from before the Korean War, because remember a American puppet Dictator started to kill off anyone who was deemed centralist to left wing before the Communist Party of Korea declared war due to those actions.

Followed by this never ended state of war, that multiple South Korea Dictatorships have kept up, working for the Americans. And even the current "Democratic" South Korea, who is feeling the American's pressure at every turn to keep this "conflict" going.

Remember Psy's Anti-American songs? That is just the tip of the iceberg for most South Koreans. A single death and lack of prosecution due to a American Imposed Status of Forces Agreement in Korea. Want to see what the South Koreans will do if a second American caused war happens? It won't be like the first time.

You'll be far more likely to see South Korea joining the North Korean side then North Korea using a nuclear weapon on Seoul.

Remember Psy's Anti-American songs? That is just the tip of the iceberg for most South Koreans.

I don't know about that. There was no shortage of anti-American music coming out of Germany in the 1980s, yet there was never any danger that the East and West Germans were going to gang up on us after the wall came down.

News flash: Young people like angsty, subversive music. Ric Romero has more at 11.

China knows that....allies is a stretch...China would jettison N Korea in a heart beat if they could.

Right, China needs the USA for economic strength. However, if North Korea was attacked, or some other disaster happened there; China would be inundated with millions of Korean refugees, which would also hurt China's economy.

Probably not. Even if literally the entire population of North Korea fled to China leaving Kim Jong Un sat on his potty crying for a diaper all by himself that'd be less than a 1.9% population increase, or roughly the same increase China saw naturally in the 2 years between 2009 and 2012, or the US saw in the 6 years between 2006 and 2012.

Of course, it's different when that kind of migration happens overnight, but when you consider that nowhere near all of them will actually flee, that many will flee to Jap

They would be concentrated in a relatively small area: the area just north of the border. Of course slowly spreading out.

They arrive all in a very short time.

They don't have homes.

These people speak most likely only Korean, so it's pretty much impossible for them to get jobs (knowing Mandarin or the local version of Chinese is a must for that). As a result, you can expect many to turn to crime just to survive. Thefts, robberies, pickpocketing, prostitution. Later organising themselves to become a "Korean mafia" or so.

Why do you think China's building all those ghost cities? Simple speculation run amok? pshaw!

If the DPRK's leadership would let the peasants go, China could probably accommodate them in the spare guestroom while they invest in remodeling NK on a China model. Once they're all safely chained to their workbenches building eyephones and have enough to eat, Bob's your uncle.

Indeed. But I think there have been signs of a shift in Chinese support for NK. The UN vote today on sanctions is one of those signs; the news was reporting that some of the terms were negotiated between the US and China. There have been other hints in the last few months. I think either two things are happening; either China is getting nervous and starting to cut NK loose, or NK is sabre-rattling in public and working like hell for a de-escalation of tensions in the back room, and they're trying to do it i

China voted for the U.N. sanctions today. So apparently they are okay with at some messing. NK pissing in the oatmeal with their nukes means SK and Japan might decide they need nukes as well. The Chinese do not want to see that because it make it more difficult to swing their dicks around the S. China sea, now that they have claimed all of it.

Sure they can, as long as they're willing to watch Seoul die in a hail of artillery. That consideration has been the thing that has kept North Korea safe all these years, the certain and simple knowledge that if the South attacks they can eliminate a good portion of its largest population and commercial center in a matter of minutes.

Maybe more like "go and boil your bottom you son of a silly person" which is appropriate given that a North Korean nuclear strike against the US has as much chance as a "fart in your general direction".

They said that if the US is about to start a nuclear war they reserve the right to make a pre-emptive strike, just like all nuclear armed countries do. There is no threat of action, merely a warning to the US that NK will defend itself.

Actually, they said that SINCE the US is about to start a nuclear war, they ARE going to make a preemptive strike. That sounds like a threat of action to me, regardless of the fact they make such statements every week or so.

"Defending" yourself by striking first whenever you fabricate arbitrary threats is not defense, that is offense. If the U.S. and DPRK were currently fighting and at war, then your point would be right, but they aren't. In the DPRK's mind, the cold war style military drills are the escalation justifying preemptive strike (at least, if you take what was said at face value).

They said that if the US is about to start a nuclear war they reserve the right to make a pre-emptive strike, just like all nuclear armed countries do. There is no threat of action, merely a warning to the US that NK will defend itself.

Actually, they are at war. There's a cease-fire in place, there's no fighting to speak of, but the Korean war hasn't actually ended.

Correction to two posts above:

1. Not every nuclear nation reserves the right to a pre-emptive strike. Russia for example has a no-first-use policy. The U.S. on the other hand changed to a more aggressive stance under Bush II, where it may use ("mini") nukes to attack targets not reachable by conventional weapons.

2. N.K. has quit the armistice with an effective date of March 11. So ever so technically we'll be back to an active war.

If you really want to get technical about things, the Korean War never ended.

If I wanted to get technical about things, I would suggest that technical people take back the word "technical" from the lawyers. Then we could tell things like they really are: that the war ended decades ago when people (mostly) stopped shooting at each other (and no, an isolated axe murder doesn't count), regardless of whatever some lawyer says after looking for signatures on a page.

I didn't see any quotes from DPRK in the article so... They're trying to influence a UN vote that happens today on the new set of sanctions (harshest yet) [cbsnews.com] that the US has proposed and will most certainly be ushered in days after they were proposed. North Korea's statement:

The statement said North Korea "strongly warns the U.N. Security Council not to make another big blunder like the one in the past when it earned the inveterate grudge of the Korean nation by acting as a war servant for the U.S. in 1950."

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to a preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest," said the statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

And I'm pretty much done with any Slashdot discussion on this since the apologists and "MAD is good" folks have been mighty thick on these past few news stories. We have entered into the era of "Hey everybody, we have nuclear weapons now do what we say or we will nuke you!" Like a teenage gang member who found his first handgun...

If the US decided right now to nuke NK the bombs would be falling within the hour. Everybody knows that. And NK surely knows that if they somehow lobbed one of their weapons at us the response would be, well...excessive.

All this over sanctions. NK would rather try to make bombs and force the world to feed its citizens than figure out agriculture.

This skips the possibility they will launch at a US carrier group, barren island or other non-continental target to induce terror but not civilian damage. We don't want them to have nukes for lots of reasons.

You're a few years behind. They already have sunk a SK Navy vessel and killed SK civilians in an artillery barrage within the last few years. The only question is if they try the same thing with a nuke.

And I'm pretty much done with any Slashdot discussion on this since the apologists and "MAD is good" folks have been mighty thick on these past few news stories. We have entered into the era of "Hey everybody, we have nuclear weapons now do what we say or we will nuke you!" Like a teenage gang member who found his first handgun...

MAD actually *is* good... when the nuclear weapons are in the hands of rational people. It worked during the cold war because the Soviets had enough to lose, and were intelligent about it. It's worked in the India/Pakistan conflict because the leadership in both countries is intelligent and rational. It'll work in Israel/Iran for exactly the same reason (which is why I'm not worried about Iran getting nuclear weapons: Israel being the only nuclear power in the region is actually destabilizing things, and there needs to be an opposing nuclear armed state to restore the balance of power). Historically, we've enjoyed more world peace since the development of nuclear weapons than ever before. Even with all the clusterfuck going on in the world today, we're still better off than we were 100 years ago by a very wide margin.

North Korea, on the other hand, has nothing to begin with, and they have an irrational despot calling the shots. Even China backed the last round of sanctions (rather than abstaining like they usually do)... that says it all.

Iran hasn't started a war of aggression in 150 years, so yes, I do consider them to be intelligent and rational. They're doing better than the US has on that front, by a wide margin. My personal values and beliefs are more in line with those when it was still called Persia, but the current leadership in Iran isn't stupid.

There's something to be said for shooting a crazy guy waving a gun in your face, ya know?

There is also something to be said about realizing that the "gun" is made of plastic, has an orange tip and shoots only a stream of water dispute what the crazy waving it says.

NK is just engaging in it's standard procedure as we ramp up towards a serious discussion about it's latest nuclear test at the UN security council. They have a long history of making outlandish threats that over reach their actual capacity, used in a effort to push as far as they can in their favor, or at least that's how they see

1) The USA was not the one that invaded in 1950, the North did.2) The USA ain't the one that is maintaining tensions. We've had lots of problems with countries since 1950 and most of them haven't lasted this long.

I know you think its chic to be critical of the USA for everything. But given that neither South Korea nor China can bring North Korea up to even basic levels of decency like feeding their own population, maybe this isn't the best example case. By and large North Korea has acted provocatively trying to create military conflict in the years since the Korean war, to which the USA has not responded forcibly. North Korea is a good example of what the world would look like when the USA does not "bomb everyone".

"North Korea is a good example of what the world would look like when the USA does not "bomb everyone"."

Eh, I'm from a country that the US hasn't bombed recently and we look nothing like North Korea, luckily.

And while I agree with you that North Korean leadership is just using this 'war' with the US as an excuse, the US is giving them a pretty good excuse to use. If only by maintaining the sheer number of military force you have been in the last few decennia. It's quite rediculous, compared to the military force of any other nation in existance today.

My point is that NK is an example where the United States has allowed a regime it would otherwise have a terrible relationship with to remain in power essentially indefinitely. Where we don't bomb. I didn't say that every country we didn't bomb is like North Korea.

For example, I am from the country that is officially sanctioned to be invaded if an American soldier is ever incarcerated by the ICC for warcrimes.

I have failed to understand why Europeans fail to see how aggressive their court system has bec

The ICC claims jurisdiction to enforce the act on statue when US troops are acting under UN mandate. That's been the real problem. Korea being incidentally an example of where the ICC could claim jurisdiction that the USA doesn't recognize.

So, the US has 1/30 of SK, roughly, and 1/60 of NK, not counting reserves.

The US presence is more a physical manifestation of a guarentee that the US will assist SK in event of war than a serious threat. Its along the lines of the US presence in Europe during the Cold War - not nearly enough to stop a Soviet assult, just there to reassure the people there that the United States was serious about assisting with European defense. The real plan, in both cases, is that the troops in place will delay the advance of invading forces till reinforcements can arrive.

I can't really respond to hyperbole. Not when You get modded insightful and I get modded troll.

Not when you accuse me of wanting to be fashion by criticizing USA and later telling me that if USA did not bomb everyone the entire world would look like North Korea. There's so many fallacious and emotional statements I really can't do anything about it.

I just wish you realize that it's not good vs evil and that warmongering rhetoric comes in huge troves from USA and a bit from smaller countries but actions mo

I agree with you on war apologetics and the USA. But North Korea isn't that sort of case. You got modded a troll probably because you are bring up objections to situations like Iraq in the context of North Korea. In North Korea we have more or less followed the policy you are advocating, and that's not a miner factual problem with your argument.

Now lets deal with the next one:

but actions mostly come from USA

That's simply not true. In general most violent actions are directed against the USA by small

Look, little fella, I know you have something to prove and all, but really hope you didn't buy into your father's bullshit. Believe it or not the U.S. has absolutely no interest in restarting the Korean War. Frankly, we're kind of warred out right now. So please stick to playing basketball with Dennis Rodman and leave us out of your grandstanding and dick waving. We've already got enough of that at home.

We'll be happy to keep sending you D-list celebrities if you'll just STFU.

Yours truly,The American People

P.S. I would point out the obvious fact that the U.S. will bomb your country back to the stone age if you try to attack anyone with nukes. But, looking at a satellite photo [newscientist.com] of the Korean peninsula at night, I'm not sure that would amount to much of a threat.

For over 50 years the propaganda war machine has been putting out highly inflamed offensive speech declaring war on various entities, so really at this point until they actually fire that first missile, I wouldn't worry about it. And when they do actually fire that missile, they will be wiped off the map.

Seems the FUD on oil and the Iraq war has proven to be quite sticky. Fact is, there are many other oil-rich countries that would have been a hell of a lot easier and convenient to take over than Iraq. Seeing as how the accusation is that the U.S. fabricated a case, it would have been just as easy to fabricate a case against any of them. If I had to plan such a thing, Venezuela would be the first to come to mind, but it's not the only one I would consider.

The war in Iraq was about one thing; Iran. Stabilizing the Middle East by reducing the amount of megalomaniacs by one. By calling Saddam's bluff (which was aimed more at Iran than the U.S.) the coalition slowed down a Middle-East arms race that was just getting started, but was going to speed up quickly once Iraq rebuilt its military capacity. One of the stated goals of the first Gulf War was to reduce their military capability for 10 years. Did the U.S. go about it the right time? Not optimal, but necessary, since it had been roughly 10 years since the first Gulf War. Did the U.S. go about it the right way? Definitely not. Rumsfeld screwed up the war strategy big time, starting with using half the troops that would have been needed for securing the borders. Nation-building and long-term occupation? No thanks; trying to quit.

North Korea presents a decent enough military threat overall, only because they've starved their people in order to pay for their military capability and have thoroughly indoctrinated them into fighting to the death to stay enslaved, but their tension with Japan and South Korea still does not amount to megalomaniac A vs megalomaniac B.

NK threatened this about a decade ago when we were getting ready to invade Iraq for no plausible reason, but apparently no one gave a shit. No one's going to give a shit this time either since NK still doesn't have a credible delivery system. People will suddenly start giving a shit by the time they DO have one.

Six minutes ago it was announced the new sanctions are approved. To those of you still following or interested in this, Reuters even updated one of the links in my original comment [slashdot.org] that you can now find here [google.com] to read:

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, a move that sparked a furious Pyongyang to threaten a nuclear strike against the United States.

The vote Thursday by the U.N.'s most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea's closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message to North Korea that the international community condemns its ballistic missile and nuclear tests — and its repeated violation of Security Council resolutions.

The new sanctions are aimed at making it more difficult for North Korea to finance and obtain material for its weapons programs.

I apologize for making it sound like the United States was the sole proposer of the new resolution -- I actually got that vibe from the DPRK press releases. I didn't know until I read this that China (at least is reported to have) co-authored them with the US.

The thing that is even more remarkable is that not only did China co-sponsor the sanctions, but they've gotten to that point very rapidly after a long history of abstaining from these kinds of votes.

China could veto any Security Council resolution they want with zero reprecussions. They can choose not to vote, letting the other members decide. They could vote yes on something another country puts on the docket.

Or they could put it on the docket themselves, which they did. China has had enough of the Kim

I'm almost not joking when I say we could be staring at a "Mouse That Roared" real world scenario. They are dead broke and can't feed their people. Their infrastructure is collapsing as are many of their newer buildings that were cheaply constructed. There is no chance of them financially turning the country around within a generation and they are facing a complete collapse within a generation or less no matter what. They could be staring at the 60 billion we just blew rebuidling Iraq and we have only started there. It may be worth loosing a few hundred thousand lives for a 60+ billion dollar payday. If they loose a city or two we'll rebuild them and since around 20 billion went missing in Iraq between the war and the rebuild there will be lots of money to steal. Say they launch a nuke that blows up half way across the Pacific and we retaliate wiping out a city. They surrender conditionally, their leaders get some protections essentially, and they plead dire hardship due to the "war". We start shipping in food and building materials and Little Kim Jr retires to EuroDisney with a few billion in his pocket and is forced to live in exile. The remaining leaders line their pockets and we update all their factories and bring the rest of the country into the 20th century. Guarantees of not bringing Little Kim Jr to trial is the iffy potential deal breaker but the rest of the scenario sounds a lot like what happened in Iraq although Iraq was already a wealthy country. Kim could just hop the border to China who would likely set him up in a palace with what money he could steal and he could cut a deal with the remaining crooks to send him a cut of what they steal in exchange for arranging exits to China if the need arose.

One is that the Korean people are racially superior to others; their naturally superior, child-like nature is why they've been repeatedly conquered in the past. Kim is their mother-protector who gently guides them while sheltering them from the evil, corrupt world outside. They are encouraged from a young age not to think about things, merely to embrace their instincts and emotional reactions; as the naturally most superior race, their instincts are pure and right and thinking too much can lead them astray.

A corellary to that is Americans are inferior half-breeds who can't help but be aggressive war-mongers and Korean baby-killers. Not even American women and children can be spared or trusted because their nature precludes it. Korean mothers are told if they leave their kids alone with American children, the American children will attack or kill theirs because of their nature. That isn't treated as a weakness by the way... Merely a result of the natural state of Korean innocence. In fact the Chinese, Europeans, Africans, et al are all inferior races, naturally untrustworthy, and beneath contempt.

Second is that the NK population is well aware they have a reduced standard of living, but it is a sacrifice they must all make to ensure they aren't conquered by a foreign power again... Necessary to preserve the superior race of the Korean people. It's the military first policy. The information firewall has been down for some time - that's why they came up with the military first policy as a way to explain the discrepancy. Think Germany in January 1945. They've obviously lost the war, yet they fight on... Some even fanatically so. Why? Why bother showing up to build tanks? Why volunteer for suicide missions? To protect the homeland (and what else can you do anyway?)

So without an ever-present enemy threatening to massacre the Korean people in a genocidal rage, an enemy that can't be reasoned or negotiated with, the reason for the NK's existence is removed.

Remember: they have been repeatedly promising that when the US is vanquished from the penninsula, the one true master race will finally be united.

How many children do you know bear a racial hatred for Western culture that is bred and drilled into them, or are armed with nuclear warheads?

It's exactly that arrogance that they are standing up against, however misplaced their aggressions are.

There's no easy solution here; disarming them is impossible, making peace with them is impossible, talking sense into them is impossible, treading lightly and carrying a big stick seems to be the only safe alternative that doesn't cause us to descend into full military operation against them.

Yes, there is. Just ignore them. Talk is cheap and these sorts of threats are nothing new. If they want their threats to be taken seriously they will have to actually start doing something, but they won't because their leaders are too comfy and rich. And, no, they are not in fact insane. It's just business as usual for their silly foreign policy.